Data Management Plan

In January, 2014 WSI, a Quantum Spatial (QSI) company, was contracted by the Puget Sound LiDAR Consortium (PSLC) to collect Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data for the Willapa River Valley site in Washington. This initial delivery is for the 35,472 acre western area within the greater study area. Due to weather and resource constraints, the entire Area of Interest (AOI) has not yet been acquired. The remaining acquisition is scheduled to occur during the Fall 2014 leaf-off season. Data are being collected to aid PSLC in assessing the topographic and geophysical properties of the study area. This report accompanies the delivery 1 LiDAR data, and documents contract specifications, data acquisition procedures, processing methods, and analysis of the final dataset including LiDAR accuracy and density. Acquisition dates and acreage are shown in Table 1, a complete list of contracted deliverables provided to PSLC.

In addition to these lidar point data, the bare earth Digital Elevation Models (DEM) created from the lidar point data are also available. These data are available for custom download at the link provided in the URL section of this metadata record.

Lineage Statement:
The NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) downloaded topographic files in .laz format from PSLC's FTP site.

Process Steps:

• 2014-04-14 00:00:00 - Acquisition. Quantum Spatial collected the Willapa River Valley Delivery 1 LiDAR data between 04/10/14 and 04/14/14. The survey used a Leica ALS70 laser system mounted in a Partenavia. Data was collected using a single pulse flight plan. Ground level GPS and aircraft IMU were collected during the flight. Leica ALS70 Instrument Parameters: Beam diameter: 32 cm, Pulse rate: 180 - 199 kHz, Maximum returns: 4, Speed: 110 knots, Overlap: 70 %, Laser power: 71 %, Field of view (FOV): 30 degrees, Beam wavelength: 1064 nm, Frequency of GPS sampling: 2 Hz, Frequency of IMU sampling: 200 Hz, Swath width: 750 m, AGL: 1400 m, Average pulse density: 8.
• 2014-07-25 00:00:00 - 1. Flight lines and data were reviewed to ensure complete coverage of the study area and positional accuracy of the laser points. 2. Laser point return coordinates were computed using ALS Post Processor and IPAS TC software based on independent data from the LiDAR system, IMU, and aircraft. 3. The raw LiDAR file was assembled into flight lines per return with each point having an associated x, y, and z coordinate. 4. Visual inspection of swath to swath laser point consistencies within the study area were used to perform manual refinements of system alignment. 5. Custom algorithms were designed to evaluate points between adjacent flight lines. Automated system alignment was computed based upon randomly selected swath to swath accuracy measurements that consider elevation, slope, and intensities. Specifically, refinement in the combination of system pitch, roll and yaw offset parameters optimize internal consistency. 6. Noise (e.g., pits and birds) was filtered using ALS post processing software, based on known elevation ranges and included the removal of any cycle slips. 7. Using TerraScan and Microstation, ground classifications utilized custom settings appropriate to the study area. 8. The corrected and filtered return points were compared to the RTK and PPK ground survey points collected to verify the vertical accuracy. 9. The highest hit algorithm was used to create this highest hit DSM.
• 2015-08-19 00:00:00 - The NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) downloaded topographic files in .laz format from PSLC's FTP site. The files contained lidar elevation, intensity, return number, class, scan angle and GPS time measurements. The data were received in Washington State Plane South Zone 4602, NAD83 coordinates and were vertically referenced to NAVD88 using the Geoid03 model. The vertical units of the data were feet. OCM performed the following processing for data storage and Digital Coast provisioning purposes: 1. The las files were converted from orthometric (NAVD88) heights to ellipsoidal heights using Geoid03, and from feet to meters. 2. The las files were converted from a Projected Coordinate System (WA SP South) to a Geographic Coordinate system (NAD83), converting from feet to decimal degrees. 3. Erroneous points were removed.

This data can be obtained on-line at the following URL:

https://coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/lidar/search/where:ID=4956;